Labor’s taxes did not do any favours for workers

RE: Ken Mcelligott’s letter “Labor is praiseworthy” ( TB, 3/7).

Ken, your letter is a fine example of a loyal Labor supporter. But there is something Bob Hawke and his sidekick Graham Richardson did while they were in power that I find hard to understand. They were responsible for bringing in “capital gains tax”, and “fringe benefit tax”.

Yes, they wanted to stop the “big man” from making millions on sales of businesses and properties but they gave no thought to the little battlers who wanted to climb the ladder to a higher level.

The last thing left in Australia for the children of working class families to raise themselves to higher levels, was capital gains. That is to buy a busted up, or an undeveloped property, work the gizzard out of their families developing these places, sell out at a profit, and to take another step upwards, and so on.

Maybe they can become millionaires before they are 60 years old. Records show there are some very talented kids out there from the ranks of the working class, and that was one way they could reach the top.

If you want to study it further, you will find that most of the world’s great inventions came from “back yard inventors”.

They did not come from the factories that mass produced them. Then there was “fringe benefit tax”.

Now, why would a Labor government want to tax an employer for giving his employee a company car to drive around, a yearly holiday for his family paid for by the boss, maybe free rent, for a faithful and talented employee, and so on?

I always thought Labor was all for the worker, so why hit the boss because he wanted to reward a special employee because of his outstanding loyalty to the company that he works for? It all never made any sense to me.

KEN KNUTH, Rangewood.